Perspectives in Biology and Medicine

ABSTRACT:

This illustrated essay describes the graphic diagnosis memoir as a form of illness narrative that uses a different way of telling stories than standard prose. A cartoon is broken into sequenced segments that ask the reader to jump across the gaps between the panels at the same time as they bridge the images and text assembled in each panel. To be successful in presenting a graphic story, the artist must be able to express an idea, but also must be able to project, or imagine, how readers will be able link ideas, images, and words. The cartoon diagnosis story makes the diagnosis relevant and visible. It does so by recognizing what reader and artist share, then adding, between the spaces, what separates them.